Technical Field
Aspects of the present disclosure relate to a developing device, an image forming apparatus, a method of detecting a developer amount, and a non-transitory recording medium storing a program for causing a control processor to execute the method.
Related Art
An electrophotography image forming apparatus provides a developer such as a toner (hereinafter, the developer is referred to as toner) from a developing section to a latent image bearer such as a photoconductor (hereinafter, the latent image bearer is referred to as photoconductor) on which an electrostatic latent image is formed, and forms a developer image such as a toner image (hereinafter, the developer image is referred to as toner image).
This developing section typically rotates a stirring screw in a toner container, mixes a nonmagnetic toner and a magnetic carrier, improve uniformity of an old toner and a new toner, transfers the toner to the photoconductor in a transfer device, and forms the toner image on the photoconductor.
Further, the developing section supplies the toner from a high-capacity supply container to the toner container. Then, the image forming apparatus conventionally detects a toner amount (developer amount) in the toner container of the developing section, and performs toner supply control such as control of supply timing and supply termination timing of the toner from the supply container to the toner container, in order to prevent blur of an image due to lack of the toner.
As methods of detecting the toner amount in the toner container, there are various methods. Among them, as a toner amount detection method having a cheap and simple configuration, a light transmission-type toner amount detection method is known, which disposes a light-emitting element and a light-receiving element across a toner container, projecting detection light from the light-emitting element toward the light-receiving element, transmits a toner stirred with a stirring screw, and detects a toner amount according to a time during which the detection light projected from the light-emitting element is incident on the light-receiving element.